Day 8: Real Climbers Now?

For the second time in the past month, Kev and I introduced someone to our world of climbing. Lately, climbing as become much more prominent in our lives. While we do a lot of things, and we do a lot of different things, our biggest grounder and place of unity is at the rock gym. Sharing that with our friends is always exciting and a lot of fun for Kev and me.

I’ve always struggled with feeling like a fraud in certain scenarios. As a Philosophy student, my professor told me not to worry about it because in Philosophy, as in life, “everyone is faking it”. But learning this didn’t stop me from feeling like an imposter at the rock gym for most of my time there.

I started rock climbing in 2014, the year I met Kevin and actually because I met Kevin. I wasn’t doing it for me, I was doing it for us. (Life doesn’t work out that beautifully, and I was fairly miserable). I stopped after a few months, trickly back to the sport here and there, spending too much money on all the gear to feel “authentic” and routinely following and unfollowing the same Instagram profiles depending on my current passion level.

After two years and logging a collective eight months in a gym, I definitely wasn’t a climber when I returned to the sport December 2016. I’d argue that it’s more authentic to say my climbing career started then.

Cranking on a warm-up boulder. March 25, 2017.

After a few false starts I definitely caught the psych for myself Winter 2016, I’m energetic about going to the gym. I don’t mind the fees that are associated with the sport/gym memberships, and probably most important for someone like me, I’m having a great time planning out what the future of my climbing could look like for me and for Kevin and me.

In two weeks Kevin and I have a casual climbing comp, Tuck Fest. I signed us up a few months ago, as a benchmark for myself to see how I was doing and for a fun “weekend away” for us as a couple. The closer it gets the more I’m starting to feel like a fraud again.

It’s very possible that those feelings of guilt and being a fraud were the motivators to why I just bought a GIANT crashpad. 4′ by 6′ it’s massive and much larger than I need, but I will say that it’s a solid purchase – safety gear is always crazy expensive and I think that using only one crashpad for the past few climbing trips has not been the safest choice for Kevin and I.

The pad is back-ordered and ships within a month (by May 7). I’m hoping it gets to us sooner and we can take it to Tuck Fest (because on the way down we mapped out some other boulders to hit up).